Power cut knocks Miliband off-air mid-speech

A live broadcast of Ed Miliband's Labour party conference speech fell off the airwaves when a power failure cut him off mid-sentence.

The political get-together, held in Liverpool, was being shown on Sky.com and on BBC TV – but the video streams cut out for approximately 10 minutes just before 3pm BST.

According to Sky journalist Glen Oglaza, Labour leader Ed disappeared from screens just as he uttered the words: "My message to the British people is...."

At 2.55pm, the BBC link was back up, but Sky took longer to come back. Conspiracy theorists on Twitter speculated that Labour's plans to license journalists, unveiled earlier that day, resulted in the plug being pulled.

Sunday Telegraph columnist Matthew d'Ancona tweeted: "This is what happens when you threaten the media with registration. Equivalent of a horse's head in Ed's bed... The worst conference speech by a party leader since the dog days of IDS. I almost feel sorry for him."

Sky's political reporting chief Adam Boulton added that the technical problem was simply due to a badly timed power cut. ®